Finch could not help grunting as he lay face-down on Reese’s bed and was repeatedly assaulted by Reese’s cock. Finch had been pleased to discover that the younger man was a quick study in this as in all other things – the very first time they’d had sex, Reese had learned how to hit Finch’s sweet spot unerringly with every thrust. He was now putting that skill to very good use, and after a few more breathless gasps of intense pleasure, Finch cried out and shot his cum on the bedspread. He wouldn’t bother sending it out to be cleaned this time; once it had been striped with many more loads – of both their cum – for the weekend, he would tell Reese to throw it away and take him shopping for a new one. Maybe this time, he could talk him into choosing some curtains, too.

Finch gripped the edge of the bed while Reese strove to reach his own climax behind him. He stared at the floor, which was blurry since he’d removed his glasses, and appreciated the feeling of fullness that came from having Reese inside him. He was happy. He didn’t even care that he was making a spectacle of himself (both of them were) to anybody who cared to watch from the building across the street – he was half-lying, half-crouching on the bed with his chest down and his ass up in the air for Reese to access. In fact Reese was holding him in that position, grasping him by the love handles to better pound into him. Finch had always been self-conscious of his wide hips but having Reese tell him, over and over, that they were sexy – that he was desirable – had made the message gradually sink into his psyche. Now it delighted him to present his naked ass to his partner whenever the opportunity arose.

And it arose with more frequency as of late, a trend which Finch hoped would not level out soon. He was enjoying this far too much and, after having very little physical contact in the past two years, he was willing to admit that it was a necessary activity for human health. He was sure Reese would agree. He sensed the younger man’s movements growing frantic as the first shuddering bursts of heat permeated his inner passage. He was being filled up, saturated, and owned by Reese. He could think of no better way to spend his evenings.

Even as athletic and stealthy as Reese usually was, he could not help panting, either, as he came down from his euphoric high. But ever the gentleman, he carefully lowered Finch’s hips to the bed before slipping out and rolling away from him to lie beside him, gasping, on his back. Finch allowed himself an indulgent smile as he looked over at his partner-turned-lover, marveling at his chiseled features and impossibly long eyelashes.

“Ha… Ha… Harold…” Reese managed at last. “I… I love you.”

“I know,” Finch answered, his voice tender. “I love you, too.”

Reese turned to meet his gaze, and Finch thought he saw something lurking – some sort of darkness – in the depths of Reese’s beautiful eyes.

“Harold, remember when… we first met? You said… you knew ‘exactly everything’ about me.”

“Yes, of course. I remember it well.”

Reese licked his lips, opened them, but hesitated.

“Do you really… love me? Even after everything… I’ve done?”

“Yes, John. I love you for who you are now.” Sensing that he needed the encouragement, Finch continued, “Everybody makes mistakes. I know I’ve made some… terrible ones – ones I will always regret. But that doesn’t make me love you any less, John. We’re all imperfect; we all have our burdens to bear. I’m just glad that we can help each other with the load.”

He had reached out to stroke Reese’s rebellious hair as he spoke, and Reese had closed his eyes as though focusing on his words and his touch. When he opened them again, his expression was resolute.

“Harold, there’s one other thing that I haven’t told you – something that you don’t already know.”

“Oh?” Finch responded, mildly curious.

“Something they never put in my file. They couldn’t, because… well, because they didn’t have a neat way to categorize it. I managed to hide it from everybody else all this time, but I think… I’m ready to tell someone now – to tell you.”

“I’m listening,” Finch assured him. “I’m here for you. And you know I would never tell anybody.”

Reese finally grinned. “Yeah, I know you can keep a secret. But that’s not what I’m worried about. I’m more concerned that… you’d be repulsed. Or that it might be too hard for you to believe.”

“Try me,” Finch said with a charming smile, not knowing what was in store.

“Okay,” Reese began, then drew in a deep breath. “When I was working for the government, I once had to go to the Ukraine for a… search and rescue mission. Right into Chernobyl.”

“Oh,” Finch replied, startled. That had certainly not been in Reese’s file, not even in the non-redacted version.

“We were given potassium iodide tablets beforehand and suited up, of course, and they put radiation sensors on us to monitor our exposure. We were given strict instructions to return as soon as the sensors reached a certain level. Anybody exposed to higher levels of radiation would be… permanently affected.”

Finch nodded, knowing well the devastating consequences of radiation poisoning.

“They also had a guy with them – they never told us his name – but he was a scientist, studying different methods to counteract radiation poisoning in the body. He gave us an injection of his experimental drug with no promises that it would work. Since we had to get exposed anyway, they figured we might as well help test his drug.”

“Was it some sort of antimicrobial treatment?” Finch asked, his brows furrowed.

“I don’t know; they never told us,” Reese answered with a sigh. “We went in and found the people we were looking for. Turns out they were a bunch of crazy Americans – self-styled ‘eco-warriors’ who’d gone in to get evidence that the accident had been caused by nuclear weapons testing, but they didn’t have the right gear or training… Long story short, I found one of them on the other side of a pond. My sensor reached the safety threshold halfway across, but I ignored it and kept going. The guy was unconscious and heavy… it took me a long time to bring him back to the command center. And in the end, they couldn’t save him. He died of an infection a few days later… His body just couldn’t fight it.”

Finch placed a hand gently on Reese’s naked chest in wordless sympathy, his eyes sorrowful. Reese was telling his story with schooled indifference, but Finch knew what a toll the incident must have taken on him.

“Of the extraction team, I was exposed to the highest levels of radiation for the longest time. I was also in the irradiated pond water for about half an hour, and although our suits were waterproof, several giant leeches managed to chew their way through. The scientist got them off of me with heated tweezers, but not before they’d gotten a good taste of my blood…” Reese paused as Finch grimaced, then continued, “and it wasn’t until later that I learned you’re not supposed to use heat to get them off, because it makes them regurgitate what’s in their stomach, infecting the wound. So that scientist was as bad as the old quacks who used to use leeches for bloodletting. About a month later, I realized I’d been infected…”

Finch gaped at Reese in horror. “Infected? With what?”

“Don’t worry – it’s not catching. I would’ve told you if it were.”

Finch shook his head. “I know you would, and I wasn’t worried about that – are you all right? Did you find a way to get disinfected?”

Reese stared up at the ceiling, his expression haunted. “No. The Company doctors figured out through trial and error that it’s not contagious, but they didn’t really know what it was, let alone how to treat it. They tried all kinds of things but none of them worked. In the end they just gave up. My medical records regarding this incident were purged from the system – like that mission had never even happened.”

“That’s… outrageous,” Finch finally said, incensed but also concerned. “So… how does it affect you?”

“It doesn’t, ordinarily,” Reese admitted. “And in a way, it might have been lucky for me that I had been infected with whatever the leeches gave me – the doctors were baffled that I didn’t have anywhere near the amount of radiation poisoning I should have, considering how long I’d been exposed. The only thing they could figure was that my mysterious infection had helped my body fight off the effects… as if the leeches had developed their own way to combat the radiation and had shared it with me.”

“Well that’s… extraordinary,” Finch said. Reese turned a crooked smile at him while taking his hand, which had been resting on his chest, in both of his own.

“They tested small areas of my skin to see how it would react to radiation and found that I’m… practically immune to it. I wouldn’t want to test it by walking into a nuclear reactor with no gear, but low doses won’t affect me at all… any more than I already have been, that is.”

“So you came out of it with a radiation-resistant immune system? I’m surprised your case study hasn’t been presented worldwide in medical journals,” Finch said with genuine wonder. “You’d think the government would want to re-create the conditions of your infection in order to produce an army of super-soldiers, impervious to dirty bombs.”

“They thought of it, believe me,” Reese said, still with a smirk twisting his lips. “But there were other side-effects that made it… problematic.”

“How so?” Finch asked, sensing that they were getting to the crux of the matter at last.

“Are you ready to see something… mind-blowing? Something so unbelievable, you’d only expect to see it in a sci-fi horror movie?”

Finch gazed into his lover’s eyes and realized that Reese was dead serious. With equal gravity, he responded, “I am. Show me what the infection did to you.”